


The Food Of Love (the small steps remix)

by Missy



Category: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid - All Media Types
Genre: Families of Choice, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 13:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4480583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luck brings them together, but music binds them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Food Of Love (the small steps remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/gifts).



> This is a remix of AlexSeanchai's fic [The Food of Love](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1328905), a lovely retelling of The Little Mermaid.

The sky was blue-green when I met her. Same color as her eyes, come to think of it – a really weird and pretty shade, something like the sea after a windstorm. 

I was lucky I saw her at all. Most days I sleep until four at night, but that morning I woke up early and made up my mind to do Arturo a favor. My fella had brought in a fine catch of sardines the day before, you see, so I aimed to surprise him by helping him dry them out for the winter. It’s a task I usually ask my sister to do for me – she understands how hard I work at the clubs, and how weird my hours are, and I pay her for her trouble. But Arturo’s also been working hard too, and I know how lonely he gets when he comes home to a quiet house and my sleeping face. So I met him on the beach and together we set up the salt salvers and pushed the still-wet fish into the crunchy layer and covered them with a handful more. While we worked we talked, we laughed, and it seemed like a fine way to pass the time even though my ass was wet and my work clothes stunk like a dying whale.

I saw the top of her head, a couple of feet shorter than the pile of rocks we sat on. From the corner of my eye I saw her take two little half steps, let out a moan of agony, and then she fell onto her belly, flat like a crepe. At first I thought it was one of the village girls tired from her swim; they’re always pushing themselves too hard, hurting their arms and legs and cramping their backs just to prove their toughness. I’d tell them when I saw them flopping around to stick close to the shore, where the water was smoother, less dangerous. I stood up to give her my foghorn yell, but as I leaned over the ledge I saw her lying there, not moving an inch. 

I wondered for a second if she was a suicide.

We had too many of those in our town. I thought it of the other girls who’d lost themselves waiting for their fellas to come back from the sea, the ones who couldn't handle it when they disappeared into the waves. They didn’t have the iron heart I have – the life that saves me even when Arturo’s gone for months. Maybe she’d spent her day waiting for her sailor to come, stuck out in the sunlight like the rest of us and learned he was gone. But this is a seafaring town – most of our men are shipbound, and our women rule the place - I didn’t recognize her, it couldn’t be that. 

You don’t live this close to the ocean without learning how to save a life. Arturo had already leapt to save her at my request, and I did my part too, shoving aside the fish so he’d have space to lay her down, then leaning over her body and helping Arturo to get her lungs working again. It didn’t take much effort to help him press the water from her lungs and get her breathing. 

“Go get the nurse,” I said, thinking of the nice old lady who lives near the center of town, with her medicines and her advice, and her gentle care. The woman was a saint, and if anyone needed a saint this girl did. Arturo nodded immediately and ran off to fetch her.

With him gone, I took care of the girl, waiting for her quiet, still body to move. All at once her eyes opened wide, and she shot to a sitting position, gasping and coughing. I patted her face, and her head slid to the right, away from my hand, a stream of water poured out of her nose. Coughing and sputtering, she tried to turn away from the light spearing down on us, pouring between the cracks of our bodies.

“Hey,” I said, patting her face. “Are you all right?”

Her eyes flickered open, skipped over the lines of my face, then landed on Arturo’s retreating back. The look in her eyes, the too-familiar longing hidden there, were too clear. 

She closed her eyes tightly and laid down on the sand, as if she were trying to will her soul to leave her body. The water behind us choked and gurgled as we waited for relief. 

I wondered how she knew him as I held her body. And knew soon enough I’d have an answer to my question.

 

*** 

 

“You did it again, didn’t you?”

Arturo’s ears turned red. “Nah!” Then he looked at the pale-eyed girl sleeping in our bed. “I hope not,” he added seriously, picking at the cotton batting of her quilt.

It was far past dark, the nurse had come and gone and given her succor, and Arturo had spent his time rescuing the sardines from the beach and made a thick, nourishing lamb stew while I stayed busy consulting.

“I know that look,” I reminded him. 

He frowned, chewing over my words. “Sometimes I think I should live in a monastery,” he muttered, leaving me to stir the stew. 

It wasn't the first time he’s said that. My Arturo has a curse, you see; just being beautiful would be enough, just being a good provider and a helper around the house, but on top of all of that he is kind and good, and so he draws people to him like a lighthouse, as if he wears a perfume, a secret charm. I had never been jealous of that magnetic power of his; Arturo and I, we’ve been together since we were one and four, and I know he’ll never stray from my side. But he doesn’t wanna hurt anyone, and I don’t want them to get hurt on a account of me, so It’s been a little problem for us. 

In every port my Arturo visits there is a person pining away from him. Most overcome it; some hire onto ships headed into our home port to make their case, and for days or weeks we must play court to an angry swain whose love has been thwarted. One boy set up camp in our garden and sang love ballads under the full moon for a solid month; one girl tried to throw herself from the prow of his ship in a gesture of drama. We two have worked together to settle these poor sorts where they ought to be; in priories on the coast; at apprenticeships in beloved professions; with shy lovers-to-be who were afraid to blossom until Arturo and I gently suggested they should. It’s a lot like saving their souls; at the very least it’s saving a life.

“What are we going to do for her?” He spoke up so suddenly that I almost lost my stirring spoon in the muck.

When I turned around, Arturo was watching the girl in the bed, very quiet, his face drawn. He knew as well as I did that this one was different. 

I turned away. “Figure out what she does best. And help her find her feet.”

 

*** 

 

Her strength came back in great waves, an ocean cresting and melting away. Once she could move we learned of her pain, that she cannot walk without great agony. The nurse didn't know why she hurts so, only that it would be dangerous for her to be on her feet for great stretches of time. Arturo carried her from her bed to a kitchen chair every afternoon, and there I tried to communicate with her while she sullenly helped with the cooking chores, hiding her feelings close to her breast.

She was mute as well; that wasn’t hard to discern, for I could see the resentment in her eyes and knew she didn’t have a way of venting it. I paid closer attention to her then, trying to figure a way into her mind, trying to pick the lock of her heart, and finally noticed her humming. And oh, it was a beautiful sound; a melody I’d never in my life heard before that day. 

“That’s a beautiful song. I've never heard it before. Do you know how to read music? Can you write it down for me?” 

She couldn’t, but I could teach her. Inch by inch, day by day, we got the notes down, then assigned the notes to each bit of melody she produced. Once the connection was made she didn’t need my help anymore, and I let her compose tunes on her own, forming my own little dances to her notes.

I needed to expand her knowledge before she got bored, and my eyes wandered to my mama’s unused, untouched piano. “Do you think she can play?” I asked Arturo one day.

He thought she could. 

I taught her what little I knew and she blossomed like a hothouse rose, her voice bending the conventional bounds of music around it and the ivory of the keys.

 

***

 

Arturo found someone in town willing to trade some of his best catch for labor and parts, and with time he produced a wheeled chair. It was the kind my grandma used to get around when I was younger, and I remembered how happy she was to be able to get around, to still be part of the family. The girl watched it with suspicion; for days she’d sit in the chair without trying to move it, cringing when it moved unexpectedly under her shifting. Then she’d move it an inch, two, three, closer to the table by herself. Soon was speeding around the village, going from shop to shop and place to place, laughing her wordless tune as she became part of the community.

Her lessons progressed well, and soon I asked her if she wanted to follow me to Majorca for a performance. Balking, she shook her head; I went alone that week. But as time grew and the village grew smaller around her, she decided to come with me. We started small; a church production in the village, with some old shanties and hymns, just my feet, her voice and the music. But the applause rained on us like silver coins, and her smile told me all I needed to know.

We stopped for dinner at an old tavern, and there, with a smudge of coal black from the fireplace, she took her slim finger and wrote on a white napkin _My name is Pearl,_. She had a name, her own name- and she was happy to share it with us at last.

 

Now we go from town to town together, Pearl and I, her playing and singing, me dancing for the crowds, from one coast to the other. Then we come home on Friday to Arturo, and we pool our money together and together, we live. The future? Eh, who cares about that? Times are perfect, and I’m not gonna mess with them when they’re going so good. But this girl we won’t be sending away. She’s here to stay until the ocean stops kissing the sand.


End file.
